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. You included Myrtle Beach as subtropical even though it's colder than "temperate" Augusta, it didn't even take 2 pages for you to start contradicting yourself.
I ran some more numbers here on Raleigh and Savannah historical lows:
Spoiler
Will look into some other cities and metrics later on. I'm surprised how many freezing nights Savannah got in in the 00's. Of course Raleigh had a lot more!
Cape Reinga is nothing but Oceanic in my view - Oceanic just explains all climates within the temperate zone that are temperature moderated in all seasons due to prevailing winds coming from the sea. However it does have a subtropical environment.
Yeah you’re probably right. Looking at it again, the summer temperatures would probably need to be a good 5 degrees warmer to meet the criteria
South Florida is an interesting case because in terms of raw averages it is tropical. However, in terms of climate genetics it 100% subtropical.
This distinction does have implications for the natural environment. For example, the coral reefs of South Florida are relict systems: they are left over from an earlier era. Their sustainability is limited not by average temperatures but rather periodic cold outbreaks--even if such outbreaks do not occur every year. A recent study in Nature Scientific Reports examined this issue:
The article goes on to provide evidence that for about the last 3000 years cold fronts have occurred with enough frequency in South Florida to have caused reef development to cease throughout the region (except the Keys). Furthermore, it is felt that contemporary climate change will amplify these conditions making it more likely that reefs will continue to deteriorate in the future despite increasing mean temperatures.
Couple things I would like to add for context. When you read those articles Ed, they tend to lump in all areas with the locales that were severely impacted. The worst coral mortality was the reef patches in the more shallow water areas in the Keys. Molasses Reef water didn't get nearly as cold as Sombrero Reef due to the former being in deeper water. Make sense, shallow water heats up and cools down much quicker than deeper waters.
The Fowey Rocks rocks reef buoy, a few miles SE of Miami closer to the Gulf Stream, in that whole winter went down to a coldest water temp of 19.1C, for one hour. The severe cold damage that happened was to reefs with water temps as low as 12C avg for multiple days.
I read a few other articles about this the last couple days. Some of the coral reefs off of South FL started building after the end of the last ice age when water levels rose above shallows. And they are still growing. The severe cold snap of 2010 January lasted 14 days. The ultimate low in Fort L was 1.1C(34F). A few days later it was in the 70's again. The water offshore never gets cold enough to kill corals severely. The water off of Fort L has never gone down to 12C for days. The Gulf Stream is too close for that or you can just go by Fowey Rocky Buoy.
There is a real effort to restore and conserve the Florida Reef System for coastal protection and environmental restoration. They are actively growing and placing in situ the more than 70 coral species that are native to the Florida Reef System and restoring it for future generations.
There are three reefs, the inner, the middle and the outer off of Broward County (Fort Lauderdale). The middle and outer are in the best shape mostly due to less human impacts. As far as still growing, the largest reef off of Broward only started growing in the 1600's.
I ran some more numbers here on Raleigh and Savannah historical lows:
Spoiler
Will look into some other cities and metrics later on. I'm surprised how many freezing nights Savannah got in in the 00's. Of course Raleigh had a lot more!
I still think they are in the same climate zone. Raleigh is just cooler.
Atlanta is a strange case. Because it's at elevation it's going to be colder than someplace like Augusta by a little bit. There has got to be a massive UHI in Atlanta metro though which might offset things if we look at recent averages as opposed to the full historical ones.
There is a pretty stark autumn period here early December, with things beginning to green again in late March. It lines up almost perfectly with the official dates of winter.
Couple things I would like to add for context. When you read those articles Ed, they tend to lump in all areas with the locales that were severely impacted. The worst coral mortality was the reef patches in the more shallow water areas in the Keys. Molasses Reef water didn't get nearly as cold as Sombrero Reef due to the former being in deeper water. Make sense, shallow water heats up and cools down much quicker than deeper waters.
The Fowey Rocks rocks reef buoy, a few miles SE of Miami closer to the Gulf Stream, in that whole winter went down to a coldest water temp of 19.1C, for one hour. The severe cold damage that happened was to reefs with water temps as low as 12C avg for multiple days.
I read a few other articles about this the last couple days. Some of the coral reefs off of South FL started building after the end of the last ice age when water levels rose above shallows. And they are still growing. The severe cold snap of 2010 January lasted 14 days. The ultimate low in Fort L was 1.1C(34F). A few days later it was in the 70's again. The water offshore never gets cold enough to kill corals severely. The water off of Fort L has never gone down to 12C for days. The Gulf Stream is too close for that or you can just go by Fowey Rocky Buoy.
There is a real effort to restore and conserve the Florida Reef System for coastal protection and environmental restoration. They are actively growing and placing in situ the more than 70 coral species that are native to the Florida Reef System and restoring it for future generations.
There are three reefs, the inner, the middle and the outer off of Broward County (Fort Lauderdale). The middle and outer are in the best shape mostly due to less human impacts. As far as still growing, the largest reef off of Broward only started growing in the 1600's.
Let's hope they're able to protect the reefs. Very precious and fragile places that are easily destroyed. They're not the kind of place that can sustain any kind of visitation.
I think that lies some of the problem, his observations strike me as extremely biased, I know the area well too, I grew up in both, experienced Hurricane Hugo when it passed through Charleston in 1989.
Even in the coastal areas right up on the Atlantic ocean is slash pines with palmettos, some areas with more live oak canopy.
That's largely what you'd see.
In the residential areas I don't notice any significant difference, it looks like pines with deciduous/evergreen mixture just like what I usually see here, just more spanish moss on the trees.
But humid subtropical is supposed to be describing a climate with hot, muggy summers where it is the dominate season and milder, cooler winters. Mildness is going to differ in feel from person to person but what Koppen/Trewartha were getting at was a largely snowfree winter climate. Even a place that might average 3 or 4 snowfalls annually while the rest of winter precipitation is rain is usually going to have temps that are averaging way above freezing.
Some have suggested using 6c as a threshold, Koppen originally used that temp for the subtropical highland climates.
Augusta is quite green in the winter, and I don't agree with the photos Ed posted of being representative of the Augusta I saw in winter. I have posted pics before of winter there. Though the photos are probably blocked now. It is just that Savannah imo definitely had more typ subtropical veg in yards than Augusta.
And Joe LaVert would be the first to tell you he cannot grow as much as Savannah can.
So you're now convinced Miami is tropical? Or at the least, too warm to be grouped together with Savannah or New Orleans. It's a much better fit at the low end of tropical rather than the high end of subtropical or even a borderline case (south-central Florida like Sarasota or Ft Pierce or even further south like Ft. Myers would better fit that niche) imo.
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